But wait, how do you make the rice black?

It’s a simple ratio of 1 cup white rice + 1 Tablespoon vinegar or lemon juice + generous squirts of food dye. Put that all in a Ziplock type bag, seal it up, and mix it by squishing the bag.

For this sensory bin, I used 8 cups of rice, 8 Tablespoons of vinegar, and a crazy amount of food dye.

Lay it to dry on a cookie sheet for a few hours (or pop it in a low heat oven for 30 minutes) and it’ll be ready to play with.

The color doesn’t stain hands – the vinegar binds the color to the rice. Your hands will be safe once it’s dry.

I turned this into a really easy black rice sensory bin.

Materials:

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What do they do with this sensory bin?

Like I said, mostly my kids are scooping and pouring. That’s what they (ages 3.5 and 24 months old) most enjoy doing.

They fill one pumpkin and dump it into the next.

They fill one Mason jar and dump it into a pumpkin.

This process repeats over and over again as they play.

And they played for more than 30 minutes, then on and off all week with this. Eventually, we put the rice away – I stored it in a Ziplock bag and I know it will last for years (most of my sensory bin supplies are older than my third born…).

Making a black rice sensory bin was so easy!

Dyeing the rice black really upped the Halloween vibes for this simple sensory bin – and having black rice will be so fun for future bins too. Dyeing rice, sensory bins, and Halloween – it just doesn’t get much better than this!